M2 – When Blank – Here’s Always A Way

Lesson 5

We’re now going to use all that information in template 3 to create these opportunities for your strategy moving forward and complete this marathon template 3 which is important because it will frame everything else we are going to achieve. You’ll see it all coming together now.

Please see the full transcript on the next tab.

Workbook

Refer to the “Resources” tab to download the Workbook for Module 2.

Please, download and save workbook file in your computer before filling it in.

Transcript

OK, we’re now going to use all that information that you already completed in the Template 3 to create these Opportunities for your strategy moving forward. It’s a pretty MARATHON temple, isn’t it?

But it’s very important because it frames everything else we are going to achieve. You’ll start see it all coming together now.

For this lesson you should complete your Threats, you should completed your problems

Now returning to the original list of Threats facing authors we uncovered earlier in the Module, the obvious way to reframe a threat is to flip it into a positive. It’s such a powerful mind technique. If I have a problem with my creative process, the solution is to learn to innovate. If I’m a procrastinator, I’ll get an accountability partner to help me follow a plan. If I suffer from low mental fortitude, it’s obvious to raise it. Missing the target – hitting the target.

You get my point – these are glib, but actually they are very powerful because underlying each is a strategic direction which, since it is the opposite of the problem, we know will solve that problem.

Now hold that thought.

Remember this slide? This was how we generate the Problem statements for Template 3. Well now we want to develop these a bit further.

Now if we focus only on the problem statement and let’s slide those over to the left. We can develop those problem statements into ACTION STATEMENTS – rich with opportunities.

The most powerful way to mitigate threats and Problems is to Learn How To Innovate. This is THE life blood of creativity and there is a framework for that too

First thing to do is generate ideas. Ask yourself “ What If…” List out all the kooky, crazy, impossible things you can think of while tackling your Threat

Do you remember the big threat I illustrated earlier, Running out of Money ?

Some possible problem statements were;

“I don’t know how to protect myself from losing all my income”

“How can I be sure that this will work” or

“What’s the worst thing that would happen to me if I lost all my income”

So Flipping those around, gives us the Action Statements

And now I’ve taken all the common Problems Facing Authors and created the resources for a Distinctive Competitive Advantage if you selected and executed even SOME of these you’d be way ahead of the rest. Why – because this is the opposite of what is holding them all in a Failure Cycle.

So when contemplating and thinking about Innovating, this is one way to generate Ideas in a very procedural way – and if you can’t or struggle to let your imagination fire. Not everyone can extend deeply into imagination. If you are good at that, you don’t need to follow this process rigidly but the output is the same. We want Lots and Lots of Ideas

So if we revisit my earlier threat of Running Out Of Money, and my action statements from,

And consider my Relative Strengths from Template 5

The ideas I can generate could be Create a Course, Consult, Branding – spreading the risk and the load to other streams of income

So go ahead and finally complete Template 3 with all the opportunity ideas you can think of. DON’T EVALUATE while you create – you’ll be doing that later. For now, Let it flow.

The whole innovation sequence is mapped out here, after you generate ideas.

Then you explore each one’s viability

Select the ones you want to test

Create test campaigns around them (you’ll get to how to do this in later modules)

Make the right decision

Prepare your infrastructure

Launch

And learn from what just happened next.

Here’s another strategic template, Template 6 to work with, which will help you to work out what you can sell and where. You find Template 6 on page 9 of the workbook.

Take all your Ideas and Opportunities from Template 3 and place them in one of these 4 boxes.

Also, include what you’ve got right now – the assets the products – everything you’re currently doing.

Let’s say for example that I already sell a book called Book Marketing Strategy 101 and wanted to sell more of that Book on Amazon. This would be a Box 1 fit

Maybe I want to do a related book to the same people on Amazon called Facebook Marketing 101 – that would be a Box 2 fit because the market has not changed but the topic and people have changed.

But then say I took my ‘Book Marketing Strategy 101’ and make it an Online Course, or a Downloadable Audio Book? That’s a Box 3 fit, because it’s the same segment of interest, Book Marketing Strategy, but I’ve moved into a new format and therefore new market.

And Finally, my Facebook Marketing turned into a Podcast in Lithuanian for example, it would be new, new and a box 4 fit. It would also be miraculous since I don’t speak of Lithuanian.

And there you have the illustration. Put YOUR ideas into this grid and see where your gaps are. Is it crowded with everything in one area? Maybe that’s a reason of confusion in your product range? Or Does it give you ideas for expansion? The secret sauce here is you want to expand strategically with the least effort and maximum leverage. NOT reinventing and inventing NEW every time.

How can you tell if your idea sucks?

Take all your Ideas and Opportunities from Template 3 and place them in one of these 4 boxes in Template 7 on page 10 Again, include what you’re doing got right now – the assets the products – everything. The purpose of this template is to help you compartmentalise and segment what you do with your product. What I mean is – how to tell if what you are doing or what you are planning to do – sucks. And how do you know if an opportunity is critical to your Strategy?

But how do you know which of these great ideas is worth doing or not?

By asking 2 questions:

Is this critical to my book strategy?

Is the financial prize worth having?

You’ll see the template here on page 10. Re-list your ideas now into this page

If the financial prize in turnover value is low, and it’s not critical to the Book Strategy – it’s a lot of work for not a lot of gain. SO MANY PEOPLE get into this doing stuff the love – that gives then significance, but is NOT strategic and NOT financially viable. It’s PAIN to be here.

If the idea is critical but the turnover is low – then is becomes a development Opportunity. Something to do LATER, when you get spare time.

But if the idea has turnover value attached but is not critical to Strategy, then these are opportunities to be exploited. For example, when I was invited to Speak at a recent event, it was not critical for MY book. In fact, I gave 40 copies away to delegates – but the resulting outcome generated more than $50,000 in consulting fees for one of my closely related businesses.

The BEST quadrant to be in is high value and high criticality. ALL your focus should be on these ideas.

Part of the Fear in Marketing is knowing if it is safe to make a decision because there is so much unknown – so many things unclear when you start off. So most people start in hope – not evaluation.

One of the hardest things to learn is actually how to make great business decisions. Which opportunities are real and which are a waste.

This next method is useful not only for threats but for every decision that involves risk, and It,s one I use all the time, called the 6 thinking hats. You can follow the instructions on Page 11, under Template 8 with a blank version on page 12.

Basically it looks at the decision from a number of different angles, the metaphor is like evaluation of the problem, idea, wearing only one mentality at a time, each a different coloured that you take off, change mentality, and then put the next one on.

Intuition

Informative

Creative

Reflective

Constructive

Cautious

Mark Donnan

Instructor

Mark is an academically trained Marketing expert, with the the highest academic and professional qualifications in Marketing with a Masters Degree, a Bachelors Degree and Post Graduate Diplomas, from the Chartered Institute of Marketing and Ulster University. Mark was one of the first ever Chartered Marketers in the United Kingdom given a quality marque endorsed by the Queen of England - around 20 years ago.

Executive Boardroom is the meeting place for Masterminds, Networking, Learning and Development combining online blended training support with real world live events. Our Mission is to serve the entrepreneurs and businesses to develop transformational teams and growth, and do what they were put on this World to do – make a difference.